The Bears are closing in on an agreement that would anchor the team’s next home in Illinois after all, with Arlington Heights the favoured site, according to Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz.

The reported turnaround follows weeks of fresh talks involving minority owner Pat Ryan, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who met in Chicago in October to try to pull the project back across the state line.

Pritzker has grown more public about his confidence that something can be signed off before the end of the year.

“I believe that in November, we’re going to be able to get something done to keep the Bears in the state of Illinois,” he told reporters, framing the emerging bill as one that would allow a stadium “built in the city or in Arlington Heights”.

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From “sole focus” on Indiana to a revived Illinois bid

The U-turn would reverse a decision that looked all but settled over the summer. On 5 June the Bears’ board of directors, chaired by George McCaskey, voted to advance a stadium development in Hammond, the team’s first formal board vote in a stadium search that had dragged on for years.

Indiana had set the trap earlier in the year with legislation creating a stadium authority funded through taxes on admissions, hotels, restaurants and tolls, a package that cleared the way for roughly $1bn in public incentives. By August, CEO Kevin Warren was telling supporters the team’s “sole focus” was two sites in northwest Indiana.

What changed, according to the Illinois reporting, is a different financing model. The bill now circulating in Springfield would allow a municipality to set up an independent authority, build a publicly owned stadium and lease it to the Bears, taking the venue off the property tax rolls. That mechanism directly addresses the Arlington Heights sticking point: property tax uncertainty on the 326-acre former Arlington Park racetrack the team bought in 2023.

The $2bn commitment and what the state would still pay

Infrastructure, not construction, is where public money would go. The Bears have committed roughly $2bn of its own money to build the stadium itself, while state spending would cover roads and utilities around the site.

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Pritzker has drawn a hard line on taxpayer exposure.

“We want to keep them in the state of Illinois,” the governor said. “If we give them those two options, I think that would be satisfactory.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s position on the Chicago site and the question of what happens to the outstanding debt on Soldier Field, the Bears’ home since 1971, remain unresolved, Crain’s reported.

Springfield has until the veto session ends

The Illinois General Assembly returns to Springfield after the 3 November election and has until the end of the fall veto session to pass the enabling legislation. If it fails there, lawmakers can revisit the bill in the January lame-duck session.

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Hammond is not off the table. If the Bears decide to build in Indiana, construction could begin in the spring of 2027, with the stadium targeted for completion in 2031.

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